UIDataGrid view Xcode component to represent large amount of table data on iPad

The Rustemsoft's UIDataGrid view control seems a little better than the standard UITableView component. The Xcode table view control is originally designed for the iPhone and renders the base of the navigation model for most of iPhone apps. The initial sense of purpose for the UITableView was to give a way to display data in a list-view format on the smaller iPhone screen. By selecting an item from a table view causes to appear a following control that contains more related data that corresponds to the selected item.

There is one more problem with the table views. By scrolling to the last cell and footer it is not holding to the view. By dragging the UITableView upwards the last row and footer are visible but when the finger released the tab bar is hiding the last row and the footer and the table view is bouncing back to show last but one cell.

Also there are some issues of UITableView scrolling. In some case scrolling is not so smooth because of images in it. It takes lots of time to load images from a file.

An Overview of the Data Grid

Data Grids present the user with data in a tabular format and are represented by the UIDataGrid class of the TouchControls framework. The information is presented in cells that formatted by rows and columns. The content of each cell is implemented in the form of a DataGridCell object. In turn, the cell object belongs to a specific DataGridColumn object that is a collection of cells. There are 9 types of DataGridColumn classes in the TouchControls framework: Button Column; DatePicker Column; Image Column; Label Column; Picker Column; Slider Column; Switch Column; TextField Column; TextView Column. Each datagrid cell displays a corresponding Xcode component: UILabel, UIImageView, etc. Every cell individually reacts on specified datagrid events: Tap, selecting new item, changing cell's content, and so on.

You can extend the UIDataGrid control in a number of ways to build custom behaviors into your iOS apps. For example, you can programmatically specify your own set of displayed columns, and you can create your own types of cells. You can easily customize the appearance of the UIDataGrid control by choosing among several properties.

Each Data Grid in your app has to have a delegate associated with it. The delegate implements the UIDataGridDelegate protocol and provides additional control over the appearance and functionality of the datagrid including detecting when a user touches a specific cell, selecting items in picker-type cells and also implementation of cell deletion and editing functions.

The Data Grid Data source

Each Data Grid in your app has to have a Data source associated with it to connect the grid to a store for quick and efficient data retrieval and updating. The dataSource property is NSMutableArray object. The dataSource property gets or sets the data source that the grid is displaying data for. Several types of data stores (JSON, plist, XML, and a mutable array object) can be used as a data source. However all of them must be converted to NSMutableArray Xcode data type.

The Data Grid purposes

On desktop software products people may display large searchable data grids, with a large number of columns that can be reordered, sorted, and filtered. This is a fairly common method on Windows and OS X (desktop operating systems). But on the iPad when we need to quickly brows large amounts of data, sort, and filter, we cannot seem to find a solution that meets the same criteria.

The UIDataGrid view component is trying to transfer the desktop experience to the mobile device. It helps you to better represent data in your app and figure out how you may use it for best user experience.

Also by using Rustemsoft UIDataGrid, instead of showing the whole grid of data Xcode developer may provide users a simple way of choosing the information which is important for them. It is possible by selecting a way to choose which columns are visible or not, or let them easy manage and switch different DataGridColumn types, or let people reorder columns with re-orderable pickers, etc.

It is also possible to modify the datagrid object settings to provide with different representations of the data which could be useful for its analysis.

Conclusion

The DataGrid is the central component of many applications due to its effective and usable presentation of tabular data. It has easy customizable layout and brings all the functionality you need to display data in rows and columns. Rustemsoft UIDatagrid provides with a simple, yet flexible means of displaying data in just about any way your user wants. If you need to customize all cells of a column with specific settings you can define the cellTemplate property for each column.

The DataGrid is a powerful component. Not only can it render large data sets, but you can create complex layouts of rows for shown data. It also allows users to intuitively scroll through long lists of information without having to click controls.

About Rustemsoft

Rustemsoft works on things that matter. Rustemsoft LLC is a creative ISV (Independent Software Vendor) specializes in intelligent software solutions for Xcode programmers, XML designers, and .NET developers. The smart people and the smart technologies taking on the complex tasks. Not just imagining. Doing. Rustemsoft works.